Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese "hellships" which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and... show more

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese "hellships" which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away. This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen, and whose father was a Somme Veteran, who survived not just one, but three close encounters with death—encounters which killed nearly all his comrades.

On completion: Even before I finished the last chapter I knew I would give this book five stars, but the last chapter concisely and honestly tells how he reacted to civilian life after the war. His struggles were not simply over when he returned to Scotland. I am speaking of the psychological battle...

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